


Dread

by emptypockets



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, but the tardis isn’t having it, dw s12 trailer, more than i meant for there to be, the doctor tries to take the fam home to keep them safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21539506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptypockets/pseuds/emptypockets
Summary: “Go. Please.”It’s starting to take effort, staying even relatively calm. The desperation to keep them safe stirs uncomfortably in her chest. Squeezes her hearts. Dread is a bubbling river of fire coursing through her veins, and it’s starting to burn.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	Dread

**Author's Note:**

> series 12 is gonna be so, SO good.

“It’s not safe.”

“You know that doesn’t change a thing, Doc.”

“It _should_ , Graham.” Her legs are weak. Detached, the Doctor could easily believe, if they weren’t still holding her upright. 

Fear, in its rawest, truest form. Cold and numbing, coursing through every fibre of her being. Her body feels heavy. Dread threatens to bring racing hearts to stillness.

“Yaz,” She tries instead. The single word, in and of itself, a plea. A prayer. “Please, listen to me-” 

“We’re not leaving you.” Yaz cuts her argument in half with a tone borderlining irritated, incredulous. Above all, ferociously insistent. “Especially not now. Not when there’s something _that_ powerful out there trying to kill you. Not the earth, not even the rest of us - it’s coming for _you._ ” 

“That’s why I have to do this alone, can’t you see that?” The Doctor pushes herself away from the console in their direction with heavy steps and a desperation to her stance. “I have to.” 

“No, you don’t-” Ryan attempts, and the Doctor turns on him. 

“Ryan, you’ve already lost two members of your family.” There’s something dangerous about her voice. A threat, on behalf of something that isn’t there to make it in person. 

He recoils at that, hurt, but not offended. Taking pause, reassessing. He can’t help but look at Graham. 

“Doc, don’t talk like that.” Graham all but snaps. Firm enough to grab her attention, confident enough for Ryan’s anxieties to disappear before her eyes. 

_You should be terrified,_ she thinks, unable to properly process how calmly they’re behaving. 

“Cybermen are-” She begins weakly. 

“You told us already.” Ryan reminds her. “Sounds pretty manageable. We’ve seen a lot of dangerous stuff.” 

_You don’t understand._

“Then why not let me handle it alone, if it’s so _manageable_?” She hisses, and each and every one of them stand a little taller. 

“Because we’re not going to leave you in danger!” Just a notch below a shout. Yaz is adamant. 

_This always happens._

“You’re not usually this stubborn about it.” Graham brims with similar frustration, though his words adopt a softer tone and his eyes narrow as he tries to see behind hers. 

She shrinks under his scrutiny, clenched fists digging crescent imprints into her palms.

“You’re terrified.” It’s Yaz that comes to conclusion first, and the Doctor looks her way to find herself under that same analytic gaze. “I’ve never seen you this scared before.” 

She opens her mouth to respond, but she’s cut off again. 

“ _That’s_ all the reason we need not to leave you alone.” Ryan decides. “I’ve got a feeling that scared and alone isn’t a good mix for you.” 

The Doctor tries to see a future with them fighting along her side. Seeing these creations to their final, _final_ end. It’s only one cyberman, as far as she knows. Only one threat. Four to one - those are good odds

Maybe it won’t be as bad as she thought. Maybe it’ll be weak. An easy fight. Maybe it’ll already be dead by the time she finds it. Maybe it just wants to go for a curry - the universe is full of surprises. 

Maybe it’ll be so, _so_ much worse than she ever could expect. 

Optimism can be a saving grace, but with it often comes a certain degree of blindness. 

It’s taken too many mistakes to learn her lesson, and the Doctor wonders if she ever really _did_ learn. 

The cybermen’s body count is immeasurable. Can she bear to add to it?

_Again?_

“No.” 

There’s a pull in the depths of her anxieties telling her to stop as she turns her back to her friends and embraces the controls in three long strides. Face set in a deep frown, determination calming shaky hands enough to enter the coordinates to Sheffield. 

“What d’you mean, no?” Graham challenges. 

“ _No._ ” She bellows, and snaps the materialization lever down. 

“Doctor-” The beginnings of a plea is silenced when the TARDIS roars to life and throws Yaz off balance. “Doctor!” She shouts, hands braced against the closest pillar in reach. “What are you doing?” 

The TARDIS lands with the zero finesse. The graceless, heavy thud sends Graham staggering and Ryan straight to the floor. 

Ryan props himself up on his elbows, disorientedly trying to see through the windows. Realization dawns like ice water to the face and his head whips around to face the console. “Did you take us home?!”

“I’ll come back for you when it’s safe.” The Doctor says, no sincerity in her voice or affirmation in her eyes. It’s never safe.

Uneasy silence poisons the air around them.

Bewilderment, worry, and fear. A sickening combination that overwhelms her senses, chills her skin. They know it’s not a promise. 

Yaz, Ryan and Graham look between each other, and then to the Doctor in question. Confirmation. 

“Go. Please.” It’s starting to take effort, staying even relatively calm. The desperation to keep them safe stirs uncomfortably in her chest. Squeezes her hearts. Dread is a bubbling river of fire coursing through her veins, and it’s starting to burn. 

Ryan stands, straightening his jacket, maintaining challenging eye contact. “Seriously?” 

“Seriously.” Her hand twitches, still curled around the lever. 

Yaz’s expression radiates half the stages of grief in a span of five seconds. Pausing at anger, morphing into a deep and painfully visible sadness that dulls usually bright eyes. 

Graham just looks like he’s waiting for her to change her mind. 

And she wants to so badly. That’s always the problem.

“Go.”

“We’re your mates.” Yaz says, as if she has to remind her. 

“We’re family.” Graham reiterates. 

They don’t move, and with an angry, impatient scowl she lunges forward to do it herself. She shoves Ryan and Graham with hands rough against their chests, and they stumble, only slightly. Mouths agape, unbelieving. 

She starts to storm towards Yaz and she’s met halfway. Yaz’s hands are fisted in her coat before the Doctor can reach her shoulders and at first she thinks she’s fighting back, trying to throw her off balance by tugging forward, but the Doctor finds their chests pressed together and Yaz’s arms curled firmly around her back. Stilling her. Simply holding her. 

And the Doctor melts. Her forehead falls to Yaz’s shoulder and her arms wrap around her waist, tightening the embrace. Savoring it. She can feel Yaz’s heart break against her own that absolutely crumble. 

She finds strength in her hold nonetheless. 

“Please be safe.” Yaz’s voice trembles with a familiar apprehension. “This shouldn’t feel like a goodbye.” 

The Doctor has no words for the disarranged thoughts bouncing around in her brain. A long, weighted exhale against Yaz’s shoulder is all she has, and then she steps back. 

Ryan hugs her quickly. Forcefully, not giving her enough time to respond before he’s holding her shoulders and ducking his head to look her straight in the eye. “Be safe.” He reemphasizes, and the Doctor only nods. 

“I’m not hugging you-” Graham’s already halfway out the door, familiar front room decor coming into focus behind him. “One, because you’ve broken another one of my chairs, but _mostly_ because we’ll see you in a couple days. Same as always. Right, Doc?” He stills with a hand against the door, holding it open and Yaz and Ryan join him outside the TARDIS. 

The Doctor smiles, lovingly and sadly, and genuinely doesn’t know if she’s telling the truth. “Right.” None of the smiles in return are genuine. 

The doors close, and she’s left alone.

“Right, then.” She tries to reassume a bit of her usual bravado, shaking her shoulders up and down and adding a bounce to her glide around the console, but its lackluster. Heartless. “Just you and me. Let’s take care of this once and for all.” A weak chuckle. “Again.”

The fiery panic has subsided but is replaced by an almost equally distracting emptiness. She hasn’t felt that in a while. 

The Doctor risks a glance at the monitor to her left, pulling it into her immediate field of vision with a hesitant hand. Outside the TARDIS doors, Yaz, Ryan and Graham are just standing there. Watching. Waiting, perhaps. 

She forces her gaze away and tiredly pulls the lever down. 

The floor beneath her hums with harsh vibrations and the TARDIS throws her off her feet. The usual wheeze accompanying dematerialization is replaced with an angry groan, a violent shake, and a loud thump. Jumping to her feet, the Doctor grabs the sides of the monitor with both hands. The TARDIS hasn’t moved.

“What?” She wonders aloud, looking up at the ceiling. 

Lights brighten one at a time in a circle around her, red with protest, then fade back to a low orange.

“Hold on,” She widens her eyes and lifts a finger accusingly. “Did you do that on purpose?”

The ring forms again, quicker and just as bright, and a series of confirming beeps sound from the console itself. 

Understanding draws the Doctor’s frown deeper. “Not you too.” The visual and auditory response repeats, and she pushes her hands into her hair. “No, no, no.” Head bowed and pacing circles around the console, she’s quick to argue her case. “You know just as well as I do that the cybermen are far, _far_ more dangerous than the three of them realize. They’re too careless - their optimism will get them killed.” The console beeps at a piercing frequency to convey annoyance. “I don’t care if I’m making you dizzy, just listen to me.”

The beeping gets louder and the Doctor puts her hands over her ears, coming to a halt with her back to the doors. “Sorry, sorry.”

The TARDIS goes quiet and instead bumps a memory against the edge of the Doctor’s consciousness. Her eyes drop to the floor. 

“My judgement isn’t _clouded_ by what happened to Bill,” She immediately defends, a shadowed, sickening weariness sinking back into her bones. “I’m trying to learn from it. And Bill,” She goes on, eyes snapping back up. “Wasn’t optimistic. She wasn’t _pessimistic,_ but she knew, like, actually _truly_ knew how dangerous it is out there. She told me straight to my face to keep her safe, and that’s exactly what I didn’t do.” 

Her ship begins to flare up a protest, but the Doctor stops her. “Shut up. I’m simply taking precautions. Maybe if I did that a little more in the past, fewer people would have died.”

The lighting in the console darkens from warm orange to an alarming, scary red. She made the TARDIS angry. 

“It’s too recent.” She blurts out, hands gripping the edge of the console, relenting. Trying to calm the dangerous vibrations increasing beneath her palms. “What happened to Bill. I think it’s just…” The Doctor’s shoulders droop, head sinking with newfound exhaustion. She closes her eyes. “A whole regeneration ago, and it’s just too recent for me not to be… scared.” She grits her teeth, struggling through the confession, and the TARDIS reassumes it’s natural light. Calming her. Listening. “I’m so scared for them. More than usual.” 

Her warm, beautifully living ship hums soothingly beneath her fingers, and she leans into it. Her breathing slows.

“But you won’t let me leave until I let them in, won’t you?” The TARDIS just continues to hum, reassuming its place in the background of her consciousness, and the Doctor knows she’s defeated.

 _It’ll be fine_ , she promises herself, and hope she can manage to believe it at some point. 

Reluctantly, she opens her eyes and looks up to the monitor expectantly, anticipating three confused faces and undoubtedly Graham demanding explanation as to why the TARDIS is smoking in his front room. 

But the space is lifeless, and someone clearing their throat from the TARDIS entryway prompts her to whirl around.

“How long have you been standing there?” She stands frozen, deer in the headlights, leaning slightly back into the console under three pairs of wondering eyes. 

“Long enough to know better than to ask questions.” Graham’s tone is tender. Understanding. “For now at least.”

Yaz’s soft expression is so sad, so kind in and of itself. The Doctor braces for sympathy - pity, even, and the unsettling sort of guilt it inflicts, but Yaz just holds her gaze wordlessly like she’s seeing her friend in a whole new fashion. There’s curiosity there, in her eyes. She has questions, but she’ll save them for another time. 

“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but is the TARDIS not letting you leave without us?” Ryan’s acting as if the sour interaction between the four of them never happened, and that’s something she appreciates in and of itself. His own way of saying _I’m not mad. I get it now._

“Yeah.” She screws her face up, almost embarrassed. “She’s not siding with me on this one.” 

“Doctor, we’re gonna be okay.” Yaz’s words are somehow more convincing now. She’s sure as ever, but a newfound sensitivity laces her voice. “But we don’t want you to be pullin’ your hair out worrying about us.”

“We’ll hang back if you really want us to.” Ryan tells her sincerely. “We trust you. We just…”

“We worry about you too, Doc.” Graham reminds her, and this one she actually needed. 

Why is _caring too much_ so much of a problem sometimes?

The console room flickers and sounds its own opinion, topping it off with a warning rumble beneath the Doctor’s feet. 

“I think the TARDIS is pretty insistent on this one.” She begrudgingly admits. “She can be proper stubborn when she has an opinion.” 

“Well I suppose that settles that, then.” Graham quipps, taking place beside the console with Yaz and Ryan close at his heels. Already bracing for lift-off. Stances firmly set, grips tight.

The sense of seriousness starts to tug her mind back to a dark place, and after simply following them with her eyes she moves herself in between Yaz and Ryan, drawing everyone’s focus to her voice and nothing else. “You have to do _everything_ I say. Every decision I make is in the best interest of your lives and whatever remaining life we find. You have to trust me. Completely.”

“Always.” Yaz vows. The Doctor looks to Ryan and Graham in question, genuinely not knowing what to expect, but she finds an identical certainty in their eyes. They nod their heads. 

“Right.” She huffs nervously, holding the lever with an unsure grip. “Ready?” 

“Ready.”

“Ready.”

“We’ve been ready, just pull the damn lever.” 

The Doctor shoots him a bantering eye and sends one more plea into the air. “Please be careful.” 

She pulls the lever and really, _really_ hopes she’s not leading them to their deaths.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if this hype keeps up i might end up expanding on this some and playing around with a cyberman story of my own. my current wip is probably a dud.


End file.
